Spring 2004 Courses

English 394 - 01: Exile and the Literary Imagination (McDougal)

Exile ­ both as an idea an as an experienced condition ­ has shaped literature in the west since Homer's Odyssey. One of the earliest works in English literature is "The Seafarer," an anonymous poem about the rigors of exile. One of the seminal works of English literature is Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, which chronicles the "life and strange, surprising adventures" of an individual who is exiled on a island for nearly three decades. Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ends with the protagonist choosing a life of exile. Exile has functioned as a topos, a site, a condition, and as a metaphor for fiction in general.

In this course we will read a variety of modern authors who deal with one or another aspect of the exilic experience, including, among others, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, James Baldwin and J. M. Coetzee, as well as such essayists as Edward Said, V.S. Naipaul and Salman Rushdie.

Requirements: a willingness to sail to foreign ports, to talk, to listen, and to write (2 short papers and a final paper).

Spring 2004 Course Listings